Kotaku 
Enter your username and password.
Denver, 8:51 AM
Thu Nov 12
57 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip us: tips@kotaku.com
Editor-In-Chief:
Brian Crecente
Email | AIM | Twitter
Deputy Editor:
Stephen Totilo
Email | AIM | Twitter
Senior Editor:
Michael McWhertor
Email | AIM | Twitter
Senior Contributing Editor, Japan:
Brian Ashcraft
Email | AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, East Coast:
Michael Fahey
Email | AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, Oceania:
Luke Plunkett
Email | AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, Weekends:
Owen Good
Email | AIM | Twitter
Correspondent, San Francisco:
AJ Glasser
Email | AIM | Twitter
Columnist:
Leigh Alexander
Columnist:
Tim Rogers
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
08/31/09
08/31/09
I can never play vanilla P2 again. It *has* to have A Week In Paradise installed, or I get incredibly bored.
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
The human body is one thing. Sex acts are another entirely.
Sex is very tied up with human psychology, and with how modern society runs (that includes places outside the USA).
There are circumstances where sex is appropriate and others where it is not. This is basically a global understanding. Unwanted sexual advances, sexual abuse, harassment, etc. I believe it's fair to take care where and how sex acts are showcased for that reason.
Most humans will participate in sex at some point in their lives. Taking part in sexual contact that is not appropriate in civilized society can destroy multiple lives. Making an effort to protect teens (who are already sexually charged) from material that could make a sexual psychological imprint, I believe, is a worthy cause.
Violence, on the other hand, is never appropriate. So any display of it is fantastical. It's not acceptable for any civilian to participate in real violence, so it's widely understood that its use in entertainment is purely fantastical.
Most humans will never kill another person. Most humans will have sex. It's as simple as that. Cases against violence are moot, in my opinion, because nobody's going to learn how to do murder "the wrong way". But sex in the wrong context is not only dangerous, but plausible.
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
And the reaction of "That man is on fire and pissing on himself, he must be doing it for self gratification".
For our American readers - how did you put out fires in Postal if you couldn't piss on yourself?
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
Do you go n watch Iron Man because it's a work of art comparable to the Mona Lisa? no you go because its got robots n explosions in it.
Yes some games can be seen as "art" like the demoscene stuff. But damn most of us just wanna have fun. and want's more fun that killing stuff on a Segway?
08/31/09
bringing up the Mona Lisa means you dont have much understanding about art…
The Mona Lisa is widely considered the first example of popular commodity masquerading as art, people want to see becasue they are told they should…its not so different than a film like Iron Man
08/31/09
With your example, Piramids of Giza, Creation of Adam, St Basils Cathedral, Parthenon, Rome Colleseum, Last Super, Forbidden City et cetera, are all popular commoditys.
Just because people view it, does not remove the fact that it is art.
It is your point of view that attempts to remove it from being art.
08/31/09
I'm just assuming that most other Kotakuites don't have a piece of paper on their wall. And thus using a popular work of art rather than something obscure as an example was just their so people didn't have to whack open Google mid way through my point.
08/31/09
08/31/09
In fact it isn't an argument, noone knows about it except hardcore gaming obsessives. Noone cares about it in fact, except perhaps a few thousand people in existence.
I have to agree with deanbmmv, I don't understand the fascination people have with the whole "games as art" thing around here. It seems that the people who do have it as a strange goal or obsession really only ever come off as idiots who are trying to say something in order to seem intelligent.
It has become a buzz phrase around here with little more use other then to put a long winded comment in hopes that it gets nominated for a week in comments by what can only be described as the converted.
Perhaps if you want a game as art you shouldn't be playing games. So until games stop being games I'm going to keep saying, Games ARE games, they are about having fun, and guess what, a team of a few hundred people with radically different parts to play aren't really going to create something with a single artistic vision within the confines of a game, which is a medium which should be focused upon providing boundaries, rules and goals which are designed to provide fun.
Now, can we stop with this seriousness and get back to dropping funny somewhat article related jokes?
08/31/09
08/31/09
Basically, the word art today means "this thing has an innate superiority to other things", it is just used to label something as more important than others. And usually the ones who say what is art and what isn't are close-minded elitists trying to put a wall between them and the "commonners".
But art really is about creativity over funcionality. It is about creating things whose only value is to be sensed, not used.
Video games are art, and Iron Man is art too. I admire the CGI artists and the guys who came up with the action scenes in Iron Man, it requires talent and creativity.
I'm for the "video games should be art" idea. Yeah sounds contradictory based on what I said, but when I say I want "art games" I mean I want the medium to move beyond where it is now, just shooting or swinging a sword.
I'll always respect a game like Devil May Cry 3, just the same way I respect Matrix, Ong Bak, Rambo 4. Awesome action movies that required a lot of talent to be made. But I'd also like to have games that I respect the same way I respect a movie like Eraserhead, There Will Be Blood or Clockwork Orange.
I want different kind of stimuli. I want more games like Killer7, Katamari Damacy or Shadow of the Colossus.
08/31/09
@Fernando Jorge: Hopefully we'll see more games delving into pure creativity once or if - the game-making tools ever become publicly available and easy to use. As it stands now it's a hard feat to put together a good game without pouring thousands of dollars and work-hours into it.
08/31/09
That said, Vince Desi should be locked up. The man is fucking crazy; just read any interview.
Also, and this is directed more @deanbmmv: and @Comban will Ban you: it's pretty closed minded to not think games are capable of being art. You guys seem to have this idea that art is limited to stuff that's boring, dated, and carries prestige, and as such you both want to believe that art can't be any fun. Not all art needs to be high art; any Friday the 13th movie could be considered just as much a work of art as any Citizen Kane. Whether or not it's good art depends on what the artist puts into it, but sometimes the artist just wants to have fun too (you wouldn't wanna go from Schindler's List to Amistad without a Jurassic Park sequel in between) and that's exactly the message they'll try to convey to their audience. But it's important that we recognize all games as art because when a high-art masterpiece video game is released (*cough*nomoreheroes*cough*), experience will help us know what to make of it and give it a second though before we immediately try to pass it off as something it's not; namely "just a game", as you put it.
08/31/09
you need a piece of paper to assert your own thinking?
and you would use an example that contradicts your point just to appease the masses, how disrespectful of you
08/31/09
I agree completely, all games are art.
I'm also inclined to state that games have achieved high art, it's just that no one has stopped long enough to think about it. At the time, Impressionism and landscapes were considered low art, now a days they're seen as the epitome of it. Hell, the most influential piece of art of all time (as voted on by art historians) is Duchamp's urinal, and that thing was thrown out with the trash when the original show was taken down.
11/14/08
11/13/08
11/13/08
Have fun figuring out which spelling goes where in the post.
11/13/08
11/13/08
11/13/08